Resist Not Evil

Of all five commandments, however, one plainly stood out and revealed, according to Tolstoy, the absolute essence of Jesus' teaching — the rest of the Gospel was just further detailing of this key instruction (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 9–25). In the King James Version of the Bible,Footnote ² this crucial directive reads as follows:

Tolstoy understood Jesus as spelling out a completely new and wiser method for human beings to deal with evil: when coerced, do not retaliate, but obey, and do so exemplarily — even if you get persecuted for it.

Tolstoy further reflected on this startling, lucid command, and realized that truly, the whole history of mankind displayed repeated and yet ultimately disastrous endeavors to resist evil with evil, to respond with violence to threats of violence, to go to war to prevent another war (Kennan Reference Kennan1887). But violent resistance only aggravates any given problem: for Tolstoy, it aggrieves the relatives of those who have been wronged, and worse, it can then be used to legitimize the other side's use of violence in reply; the parties are then caught in a brutal game of tit-for-tat that spreads into “a universal reign of violence” (Kennan Reference Kennan1887, 259). Thus, when the oppressed grow stronger and eventually take control, they resentfully avenge themselves, and in turn become the new oppressors (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Kentish1987b, 161–164). In the end, an eye for eye can only make the whole world go blind.Footnote ³

It became clear to Tolstoy that this old approach to evil is both irrational and unchristian. It is irrational because in the long run, it does not guarantee that the end for which violent means are used will be satisfactorily secured. And it is unchristian because Jesus blatantly condemned it — both verbally and in the way he responded to his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. In Tolstoy's words, this was Jesus' message to mankind: “You think that your laws correct evil; they only increase it. There is only one way of extirpating evil — to return good to all men without distinction. You have tried your principle for thousands of years; try now mine, which is the reverse” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 41). Tolstoy then proudly consolidated his point:

An honest Christian, according to Tolstoy, cannot deny that Jesus called for men not to resist evil. So for Tolstoy, whoever describes himself as a Christian and yet is caught resisting evil would have to be, quite frankly, a hypocrite — namely one of those whom Jesus denigrated as blind fools who appear righteous but are in fact full of iniquity (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 50–66; Matthew 23; Luke 11).

The implications of this commandment for how Christians are to conduct international relations are obvious: if resistance to evil is rebuked by Jesus, then war is a plainly unchristian act. That so many wars have been fought in the name of Christianity does not prove war to be compatible with it; what it does show, however, is that Jesus' teaching has been (for Tolstoy, intentionally) evaded for so many centuries (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934b, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934h, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c).Footnote ⁴ Besides, apart from the whole Gospel in general, which he felt confirmed the commandment of non-resistance, Tolstoy further pointed to two other specific passages within the Sermon on the Mount that corroborate, from a different angle, the Christian rejection of war.

Judge Not

The first such passage is one that Tolstoy incorporates in his broader exegesis of the commandment not to resist evil, since it is alluded to in the same breath when Jesus refers to “being sued at the law.” Later in the Sermon, in the beginning of Matthew's seventh chapter, Jesus further states the following:

Tolstoy additionally remarks that the order not to judge one another is further reiterated by several of Jesus' parables, by his response to the proposed stoning of the adulteress, as well as much later in the New Testament by James and by Paul (Luke 6:37–42; John 8:1–11; James 4:11–12; Romans 2:1–4).

And again, the instruction, says Tolstoy, could not have been much clearer. Human beings are fallible and hence unqualified to judge one another, let alone punish any perceived wickedness. Tolstoy interprets “judgement” In the broad sense of not just forming an opinion about the situation (beholding the mote), but acting upon it (pulling it out), especially without considering whether one is not guilty of a similar fault (the beam). Since all men are at least partly blinded by their own wickedness, for them to dare to accuse, judge, and punish one another is misguided and somewhat hypocritical. Man has no prerogative to convict his fellow. Therefore this instruction does indeed bring further credence (albeit indirectly) to the above rule of non-resistance: if one is unable to correctly discern what is evil from what is not, not least because one is oneself tainted by evil, then acting upon such perception is bound to produce further harm. One cannot resist and exterminate evil if one is unable to accurately assess one's own evil in the first place (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 26–40).

Love Your Enemies

The other passage that leads Tolstoy to conclude that war must be unchristian is actually the commandment that immediately follows the one of non-resistance to evil, wherein Jesus calls his followers to love even their enemies:

Here, however, Tolstoy initially felt this instruction to be an “exaggeration” of the command not to resist evil (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 88). How could one actually love one's personal enemy? Not resisting evil would be very hard but could be done, yet bringing oneself to genuinely love one's enemy sounded strictly impossible. And then Tolstoy realized there was another oddity: while in the previous four commandments, Jesus quotes the exact words of the old law, here, he appears to be misquoting it (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 89). Why would Jesus calumniate the old law?

Tolstoy found the appeasing answer to both questions in a lexicon. That is, as many other passages from the Bible indeed confirmed, “neighbour” In Jewish simply meant a fellow Jew. Similarly, “enemy,” in the Gospel is usually used not to denote a private enemy, but a public or national one. This would then make sense of the commandment: first, Jesus does not calumniate the old law, but he simply brings together the many ancient orders to oppress other nations into one single saying; second, again according to Tolstoy, Jesus is not asking his followers to love their personal enemies, but simply to consider foreigners with the same love and respect as fellow countrymen. In other words, the old law stimulated patriotism, but Jesus supersedes it with a new command; that is, Jesus calls his disciples to disregard national boundaries and to treat all nationalities in the same loving way. Patriotism is thus rejected, but so are all actions that are based upon, or that further incite, national distinctions — such as war or military preparations for war (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 90–92). So from yet another angle, international warfare is, for Tolstoy, a most unchristian activity.Footnote ⁵

The Heart of Jesus' Message

Tolstoy's idiosyncratic exegesis of the Bible therefore ignored established commentaries and understood Jesus' teaching in a very literal and rational manner. He stripped away all elements of supernatural mystery and was thus left only with an ethical system, a set of moral rules for conduct that he considered to be best expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.Footnote ⁶ Even if one-sided and disrespectful to the rest of the traditional canon, Tolstoy does emphasize a thought-provoking dimension of the Christian teaching, one that is in the heart of the New Testament for all to see. Whatever the shortfalls of his hermeneutical method (which will be returned to further below), he does draw out Jesus' very eloquent condemnation of any form of resistance to evil.

The implications for the realm of politics and international relations are fairly self-explanatory: war or terrorism, the most extensive forms of resistance to (whatever gets defined as) evil, are for Tolstoy, clearly unchristian activities. So while justifications for resistance may be fabricated on a variety of theoretical foundations, they cannot coherently be rooted in a Christian perspective of the world. And anyhow, resistance is in fact an irrational method in the face of evil, because violence breeds further violence.

The beauty of the Christian message is thus that there can be no difference between means and ends. The means are the ends, and by the same token violence is evil. Hence, to use a more Christian phrase, only love can bring about love. War cannot bring lasting peace; resistance can only bring more resistance further down the line. If one wants peace, one must act peacefully. Terrorizing one's neighbor guarantees terrorism in return; loving one's neighbor is the only way to realistically expect love in return. That, for Tolstoy, is the absolute essence of the Christian teaching.

Protecting Our Loved Ones

Many objections to pure non-resistance have been formulated over the years, and Tolstoy responds to some of them in his writings (for instance, Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 19–25, 85–95; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 34–54). Due to limited space, they cannot all be listed here. In any case, Tolstoy's typical answer is that none of the usual objections are actually grounded in Jesus' teaching. They are based on all sorts of theoretical arguments, but not on what Jesus said.

One such objection, however, ought to be addressed here, because it seems to be grounded in scripture, and because limited violence and war continue to be based upon it. The argument is that one's love for one's neighbor implies a duty to protect him, even by the reluctant adoption of violence if necessary. The more extreme version of this argument asks how a Christian non-resistant would react if his own child was being attacked.

Tolstoy responds to this objection several times across his writings (Kennan Reference Kennan1887, 256–259; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1967b, 186–188; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Sampson1975, 21–23; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Kentish1987b, 214–216; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001b, 534). For a start, he remarks that it is generally but mistakenly assumed that the only possible reply to save the child is to kill the assailant (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1967b, 186). Yet he notes that it is never certain that an evil act would have indeed been committed — but that our own violence would itself be evil and a likely cause of further evil (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1967b, 186–188; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Kentish1987b, 214–216; Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 39–40). For Tolstoy, the only type of response available to a Christian faithful to Jesus' teaching would be to “plead with the assailant” or to “interpose his body between the assailant and the victim,” but that “he cannot deliberately abandon the law he has received from God” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1967b, 187). Either way, violence is not the only option.

Moreover, Tolstoy writes, “None of us has ever yet met the imaginary criminal with the imaginary child, but all the horrors which fill the annals of history and of our own times came, and come, from this one thing, namely, that people will believe they really foresee speculative future results of action” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1967b, 188). Men are convinced violence will lead to the desired solution and thus fill the annals of history with their violent actions, which that one imaginary child continues to legitimize. As Tolstoy replied to someone else who brought up this argument,

People, Tolstoy laments, worry about an imaginary — or at least very rare — defenseless child, but not about the real suffering of so many of their neighbors as a result of the acceptance of violence as an appropriate method to respond to real or hypothetical aggression (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Sampson1975, 21–22).

Tolstoy does not brush aside the very real torture, rape and murder which are committed in warfare. He is acutely aware of these horrors of war. Indeed, his celebrated War and Peace reveals his fascination with the social processes that can lead sensible human beings to such mass slaughter as the Napoleonic Wars (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1993b). After his conversion to Christianity, however, the slight touches of awe which may have transpired in his earlier writings disappear, and Tolstoy adopts an outright aversion of war in all its forms. As an illustration, these are the words he writes to describe the next war which he believes Russia to be inevitably heading toward:

Tolstoy is aware of the horrors of war, but where he differs from the majority of political thinkers, and indeed where the essence of his contribution lies, is in his utter conviction that to eradicate such horrors, human beings need to stop fighting and start loving and forgiving, even at the cost of very real sacrifices and suffering in the short run. That is what he understands Jesus' teaching to be about.

For Tolstoy, the suffering resulting from non-resistance is not worse than the suffering resulting from war — but at least it might lead humanity toward a brighter future. Of course, it is very difficult, especially when talking about one's own child. But for Tolstoy, the use of violence in defense will only aggrieve yet another family — and the cycle of violence thus continues. In a sense, Tolstoy is a cold rationalist: it is just rational for him not to resist because, first, resistance does not guarantee that one will save one's life or that of one's child anyway, and second, non-resistance is the only way to open the possibility for peace in the long run. According to Tolstoy's understanding of Jesus, non-resistance is the only truly rational option in the long run, and in the short run, the suffering it entails is not worse than the suffering likely to ensue from violent resistance. Therefore, even to protect one's loved ones, Tolstoy does not believe violence can be justified.

Perhaps the most eloquent and powerful response to this objection, however, comes not from Tolstoy, but from Adin Ballou, a non-resistant whom Tolstoy quotes at length and with respect (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 11–21). Ballou's answer is quite long, but every sentence of it is powerful enough to warrant the following extended quotation:

Ballou's answer is so moving in part because it recalls so eloquently that non-resistance is not separable from a broader Christian attitude of love and care: feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, caring for the afflicted — true love of neighbor and enemy — is likely to prevent anger and violence from arising in the first place. He admits that it is difficult, and that he might fail in doing what Jesus demands, but he rejects the idea that one ought to use violence to protect one's loved ones, because in the long run, a loving and non-resistant attitude is more likely to save us than an aggressive response.

Tolstoy agrees: any violent response sows the seeds of further violence, and justifies the other side's right to use violence to protect what it regards as its own vital interests (Kennan Reference Kennan1887). Moreover, in a truly Christian society — where no-one would use violence against others, where all would care for, give to and help every single human being — in such a society, the risk for violence to arise would be very low in the first place (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 218). Thus the best response to the imaginary criminal wishing to rape or murder the imaginary child is not necessarily to use violence in reply, and anyway, a truly Christian society would almost eliminate the risk of such violence arising in the first place. Tolstoy (and Ballou) therefore rejects the argument whereby violence may be needed to protect one's neighbor. For him, there can be no compromise, no exception to Jesus' rule of turning the other cheek. Besides, he notes that “no confirmation of such an interpretation can be found anywhere in Christ's teaching” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 38).

Renouncing the Use of Force

The first and most imperative comment that Tolstoy would make on the “war on terror” would be to point out the dangerous delusion that both sides entertain by thinking that their end justifies whatever violent means. For Tolstoy, this delusion is the very evil that must be overcome, because Jesus rationally establishes that whether the other is truly wicked or not, the only constructive reaction is non-resistance — it is the only long term solution (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934d, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c).

This does not mean that one ought not to react at all, to remain hopelessly passive when attacked. Jesus describes what action to take when he calls for turning the other cheek, for instance, whatever the consequences — not “for sheer suffering's sake,” but so as not to resist evil, even if that does entail suffering (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 17). It is a purposeful response, one that represents an ultimate act of love, patience, and forgiveness. The hope is that such compelling demonstration of love is bound to eventually soften the heart of the violent enemy, of “evil.” Of course, there is no guarantee that it will. It opens the road of apparent victory to the enemy, but the victim's suffering can in turn touch the heart of the enemy — at least of substantial sections of its population. Thus, while the enemy may be seemingly winning all the battles in the short run, in the broader campaign for hearts and minds, his physical force could well result in moral failure, and an eventual change of heart. Willingness to suffer out of love and forgiveness can have a powerful moral effect on the aggressor.

After all, Jesus' sacrifice did ultimately enchant many disbelievers; and Gandhi, who was influenced by Tolstoy and considered him “one of the clearest thinkers in the western world” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937b, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937d, 414), did succeed in overpowering the mighty British Empire. Gandhi in turn inspired Martin Luther King and the “peaceniks” of the 1960s, both of which also achieved some success in the causes they were campaigning for. Put simply, love, as a tactic, can work; the battle can be won on moral grounds. Non-resistance does not imply the final victory of the enemy; on the contrary, it can ultimately win him over, and do so in a non-coercive and reputable way.

But here an ambiguity arises: Tolstoy, and even more so, some of his twentieth century followers, would seem to have somewhat innocently misread the “non-resistance to evil” of Matthew's chapter 5, verse 39, as “non-resistance to evil by evil.” That is, it would seem that Tolstoy genuinely misinterpreted the injunction to mean that no physical force should be used to resist evil — hence that non-violent resistance could be tolerated (Maude Reference Maude1930b, 250; Maude Reference Maude and Maude1933, xv). Indeed, to George Kennan's question whether resistance to oppression was justifiable, Tolstoy replied: “That depends upon what you mean by resistance; if you mean persuasion, argument, protest, I answer yes; if you mean violence — no. I do not believe that violent resistance to evil is ever justifiable under any circumstances” (Kennan Reference Kennan1887, 256).Footnote ⁷

Did Tolstoy thereby misapprehend Jesus' commandment? Did Jesus, in fact, never ever resist? In all fairness, Tolstoy probably estimated that Jesus did sometimes “resist” to the extent that he spoke out, argued with his detractors, and tried to persuade them of their wrong. Does this mean that Jesus did not abide by his own instruction? The answer depends in part on how much one focuses on the letter rather than the spirit of the Sermon. Jesus' actions were always grounded in the spirit of love. In the end, the highest principle and ultimate reference on which all Christian guidelines are based is love — Jesus frequently repeats that love of God and of one's neighbor are the two most fundamental commandments on which the whole law subsequently hangs (for example, Matthew 22:36–40; Mark 12:30–31; John 13:34–35). So for instance, in cases where strict non-resistance would imply the transgression of the more fundamental Christian principle of love, then the secondary command of non-resistance would presumably have to be proportionally moderated.

Tolstoy for example, called for men to protest against their conscription into the army,Footnote ⁸ and for citizens not to pay taxes, both in order to deny the state its chief instruments of violent oppression (the next section will further explain why Tolstoy considered the state to be evil). Yet he also said that nevertheless, “following the command of non-resistance to evil, men should yield what goods and labor the authorities may demand” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1933, 288). Thus, one should not automatically obey — in anticipation, as it were, of a future threat of violence — but only when eventually pressed should one then yield (or not resist). For instance, one should neither willingly pay taxes nor resist the state's eventual compulsory seizure of them. And even when yielding to force, Christian love should always remain paramount. So for example, if forced into a military campaign, then one should still not kill fellow human beings — that is, not fire back when shot at. No violence should be used, and whatever alternative to it is adopted, love of God and of one's neighbor should always remain the supreme benchmark for all action.

In short, there is apparently no easy, nicely predefined answer to any given situation where one may be driven to feel like resisting. For sure, violent resistance would still clearly be at odds with Jesus' command. Whether non-violent resistance could sometimes be tolerated, however, remains unclear. When faced with evil, some response is certainly called for; but it seems that this reaction, coming from an honest Christian, could never be violent. Tolstoy's own reaction to violence was to spread his gospel in various essays, plays, and novels — his protests were largely verbal.Footnote ⁹ Gandhi applied the principle of non-violence much more confrontationally; King and later pacifists pushed it even further into tactical political activism.

Either way, according to Tolstoy, violence and violent resistance stand plainly condemned by Jesus' teaching. If one must resist because, say, not doing so would force a worse transgression of the spirit of Jesus' teaching, then one should at least not use violence in such resistance. Even better and certainly more Christian, however, would be non-resistance and forgiveness — the symbolic turning of the other cheek. In the “war on terror,” therefore, Tolstoy would be eager to remind “Christians” that any use of violence would stand condemned by Jesus and that the spectrum of possible Christian responses to terrorism would range quite narrowly from non-resistance to non-violent resistance — anything more would reveal a disobedience of Jesus' commandments.

At any rate, whether the “correct” interpretation is closer to strict non-resistance or to a more ambiguous non-violent resistance, following either method remains an extremely difficult task. Then again Jesus warned, as Tolstoy reminds us, that he who has not taken up his cross — that is, he who is not prepared to face the ultimate consequence of non-resistance to evil — cannot be his disciple (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 18; Matthew 16:24–28; Mark 8:34–38; Luke 9:23–27).Footnote ¹⁰ The path shown by Jesus is a difficult one that can only be trod by true martyrs. A “martyr,” etymologically, is he who makes himself a witness to his faith. And it is the ultimate testimony to one's faith to be ready to put it to practice even when one's very life is threatened. But the life to be sacrificed, it should be noted, is not the enemy's life, but the martyr's own life — killing others is not a testimony of love, but of anger, fear, or hatred. For Tolstoy, therefore, a true martyr to Jesus' message would neither punish nor resist (or at least not use violence to resist), but would strive to act from love, however hard, whatever the likelihood of being crucified.Footnote ¹¹ He would patiently learn to forgive and turn the other cheek, even at the risk of death. Such would be the only way to eventually win the hearts and minds of the other camp and open up the possibilities for reconciliation in the “war on terror.”

On Terrorism

For that matter, the expression “war on terror” is unhelpful, really. For one thing, from the victim's perspective, any act of violence can be terrifying. That is, to the extent that any use of force “terrorizes” the targeted population, war is terrorism, only with more conventional tactics. True, terrorists strike in a deliberately indiscriminate manner, whereas conventional armies at least try to be more precise in their selection of targets. But collateral damage, the heavily disproportionate scale of conventional power, and the typical perception that one is suffering unjustly from the consequences of warfare, together ensure that from the perspective of the one whose cheek is struck, war can easily be perceived as an act of violence that is just as terrifying as terrorism (for an interesting and controversial discussion of what constitutes terrorism, and on how a state's actions can also be seen to amount to terrorism, see Chomsky Reference Chomsky2002).

Besides, Tolstoy would refuse to label terrorists as inhuman or evil beings per se; for him, these are human beings whose mistake was to choose the evil method of violence as a desperate response to perceived injustices against their people and values. It is not the terrorists who are “evil,” but their reaction to what they themselves considered to be “evil” in the first place.Footnote ¹² So although there are important differences between conventional warfare and terrorism, for Tolstoy, both tactics spring from the same mistaken attitude to what is perceived as evil — and in fact, it is in this very mistake that the evil resides. This is why “war on terror” is an unhelpful expression; if anything, it accidentally betrays a wide spread blindness to the self-fulfilling origin of the very problem that this “war” claims to tackle. More often than not, terrorists justify their actions as the last available option to respond to acts of violence committed against them; so responding to terrorism by further violence, for Tolstoy, can only guarantee a worsening cycle of violence for the future.

According to Tolstoy, therefore, the problem is not terrorism but the use of force, of which terrorism is just another (admittedly particularly gruesome) method. Tolstoy would therefore predict that terrorism will not be resolved by war; it will spread. In his own era, Tolstoy condemned both the state's violence and the revolutionaries that tried to violently overthrow it (using methods akin to terrorism), because both used violent means to achieve their aims, and so by their acts, both were only aggravating the situation (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937c, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937e, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937f). The real problem, according to Tolstoy, is anyone's readiness to use violence in attempting to resist the other. Evil will not be defeated by violence, because what is evil in a wicked act is not the actor as such, but the very violence that this actor is ready to inflict.

In other words, the harmful element in “us versus them” is not “them,” but “us” inasmuch as we see the situation as a fierce “versus.” To the extent that both sides of the “war on terror” are ready to use violence either in alleged self-defense or in open “crusade” against one another, by that very act they embody the “evil” they claim to be trying to eliminate. And until both sides grasp this, Tolstoy would expect the “war on terror” to painfully linger on. Therefore, Tolstoy would call for both antagonists in the “war on terror” not to use violence in their attempt to achieve their vision for society. Surely, he contends, human beings must be able to devise “better means of improving the conditions of humanity than by killing people whose destruction can be of no more use than the decapitation of that mythical monster on whose neck a new head appeared as soon as one was cut off?” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937e, 197)

Back in his own time, Tolstoy had tried to warn about the terrible cycle of violence that was likely to engulf both his country, and the world at large if Jesus' advice was not heeded (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937c, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937e, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937f, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001a, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001d). And for a time, his fellow Russians did seem to be carefully listening to his voice; Tolstoy certainly became a very influential figure in Russia — a commentator indeed reports that there were, at the turn of the century, two powers in Russia: Tsar Nicholas II and Leo Tolstoy (Kentish Reference Kentish1987, 9). But in the end, Tolstoy's message was not to be heard amid the voices calling for violent revolution and war, and shortly after his death in 1910, the world entered perhaps the darkest ages of its history so far. Various heads of the mythical monster were cut-off, both nationally (the Bolshevik Revolution) and internationally (the First World War), only for new ones to promptly replace them.

Now that the world is becoming engulfed into yet another war of global proportions, Tolstoy would once again call for the moderates from both sides to seriously ask themselves whether the path they are choosing can really lead them to the place they are aiming to arrive at. He would campaign for forgiveness and understanding rather than condemnation and retaliation. He would probably invite the West to reconsider the foreign policy which has driven human beings to commit suicide in order to harm other human beings. He would probably argue that a neighbor's resort to terrorism is the symptom of a failure on our part to love our neighbor in the first place, in other words, that our enemy's violence is not separable from our own. He would probably ask Westerners to consider the evil which they are the cause of before they lecture their brothers on their actions. He would probably appeal for the time and effort committed to resistance to evil — the enormous “defense” budgets of “Christian” nations — to be spent on loving and caring for all human beings instead.Footnote ¹³ He would probably claim that if Westerners want to be treated with love and not hatred, they need to cultivate that love in the first place — “love your enemies,” he says, “and you will have none” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937a, 250).Footnote ¹⁴

Tolstoy did not witness the international terrorism of today. He wrote in his context which, domestically, was one of revolutionary violence and equally brutal counter-revolutionary repression, and internationally, of military escalation, nationalist passions, and alliances for war. His central main message was to call for all sides to forego any use of violence and, in that sense, to try to “turn the other cheek” instead of striking “an eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth” (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937c, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937e, Reference Tolstoy and Stephen1990a, Reference Tolstoy and Stephen1990b). He thought this was the only rational response in the long run. Hence, on the same grounds of universal reason as best articulated by Jesus, he would advocate the same today — but he would expect the followers of Jesus to lead the way. Moreover, in our context, as then, he would probably argue that the state should be abolished given that, as will be explained below, for him, the state cannot but be a fundamental cause of violence. More to the point, he would encourage Christians to live a very different and simpler life of care and sacrifice for one another, not least since this would prevent violence and hatred from arising in the first place (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoï1898, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934c, Reference Tolstoy and Stephen1990b). Above all, he would enjoin Christians to enact the moral rules clearly spelt out by Jesus. Even in the face of indiscriminate terrorism, the challenge for the follower of Jesus is to refrain from reacting with force. For Tolstoy, Jesus and in fact reason itself both suggest that violent resistance cannot and will not work in the long run.

Reason, Religion, and Morality

According Tolstoy, the radical prescription of non-resistance could be reached by both religion and reason, because for him, reason naturally leads into religion (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934e, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934h). Tolstoy had decided that the existence of God could be rationally established, and in fact, it was this conclusion that eventually got him over his serious existential crisis in the first place (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934h, Reference Tolstoy and Kentish1987a). He further believed that all rational, thinking human beings would be bound to eventually find themselves in the same existential torment as him, until they reached the same rational conclusion that proved that God must necessarily exist. Moreover, since God truly exists, it followed that proper morality has to be based on God, that only religion can provide a sound morality on which to base one's life (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934d, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934e, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934h).

Besides, Tolstoy claimed that all religions and all the wise teachers of mankind have all come to this very same conclusion. Tolstoy studied many religious and philosophical traditions, and reckoned that they all amount to the same moral teaching — they all teach the same, delightful Law of Love. After all, if a proper relationship to God has to be founded upon reason, it is quite logical to conclude that all sensible religious traditions must propose the same moral guidelines for human conduct. And for Tolstoy, the most articulate expression of such divine morality is to be found, quite predictably, in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Tolstoy reached the contentious conclusion whereby Christianity, properly understood, presents the most complete summary of all religions and with it the best illustration of the ideal relationship between religion and politics (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934h).

Is Tolstoy justified in extending Jesus' commandments into other metaphysical and religious traditions? For instance, would a Muslim scholar truly identify with the essence of Tolstoy's interpretation of Jesus? Can Tolstoy's understanding of Jesus really help transcend the differences between and among major world religions? Or could it, at least, bring moderates on the two sides of the “war on terror” to open a peaceful dialogue in which new ways to tackle the problem of terrorism could be explored? Besides, can a religious perception of the world really be reached by pushing reason to its limits? Tolstoy's answers may be radical and perhaps overoptimistic, but they are worth reflecting upon in today's political climate. He may be one-sided in his interpretation of Christianity, but if he is right, at least in his radical assessment of the cycle of violence and the only way out of it, then our current course of action is less of a solution than a promise of further violence in the future.

That being said, Tolstoy's rationalization of religion is clearly not without problems. For a start, his “proof” of the existence of God is in fact far less straightforward and convincing than he thought it to be. A proper critical analysis of this “proof” falls out of the scope of this paper, but the point here is that his particular blending of reason and religion is not likely to convince most of his readers. Indeed, some have accused Tolstoy of detaching Christianity from its essentials (for some criticism on Tolstoy's view of religion, see Greenwood Reference Greenwood1975; Maude Reference Maude1930a; Spence Reference Spence1967; Stepun Reference Stepun1960).

In truth, Tolstoy's exegesis of the New Testament was probably too fanatical, too rigid in its literalism, too narrow-minded in its rationalism — and in that sense, he is just another example of religious (albeit non-violent) extremism. To be sure, even though this would contradict his own exegesis of Jesus' message, Tolstoy was in fact quite judgmental after all (something he seems to admit openly only in Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude1937c). He was quick to accuse many self-defined Christians of actually being unchristian hypocrites. True, he did not punish or use any force against those he condemned, but he did castigate many of his brothers that he thought had “a mote in their eye.” He was fanatical about what he understood to be the transparent truth of Jesus' teaching. That is to say, in his severely judgmental interpretation of Christianity, he bore some of the characteristics which one would expect from a religious extremist.

Moreover, he was also an extremist in the sense that he only swore by a strictly literal method of exegesis. He refused to concede that religious scriptures embody elements of myth and mystery perhaps precisely because the essence of what such texts address cannot be reached by too literal a mindset. Unlike the traditional (certainly medieval) approach to hermeneutics, he did not believe that religious manuscripts contain a symbolic or mystical dimension that transcends whatever literal or moral interpretation one can ascribe to them. For Tolstoy, the four Gospels are just competing biographies of the life of a wise and rational man, biographies that were then cunningly peppered by superstitious fibs. Christianity, for him, was about ethics, not mysticism, liturgy, or theology.

Many Christians may well (not unjustifiably) object to Tolstoy's prioritization of morality, to his disrespect for ritual and for the traditional Christian canon; but for them to prove him wrong, however, a bona fide and convincing argument on why Jesus' words in the Sermon should not be taken literally — or even on why the second “commandment” should be taken literally and followed dutifully, as Tolstoy remarks it often is, but not the fourth and fifth (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 11–13, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 40–42) — would have to be formulated first. Thus far, none of his critics have done that.Footnote ¹⁵ Undeniably, Tolstoy can indeed be accused of a somewhat one-sided, even extremist reading of Christian scripture; but this could work as a call for more moderate Christians to fully spell out their alternative but truthful interpretation of the Sermon's political implications. As things stand, however, Tolstoy does not appear to be so wrong in his analysis of the response to violence that Jesus advocates. Tolstoy himself may fail to qualify as what most people would consider to be a Christian, but he does highlight passages in the New Testament that are definitely part and parcel of Christianity.

In any case, aside from the question of authenticity to Christianity, the response to violence that Tolstoy encouraged remains potentially persuasive even to an atheistic audience. Whether there is a hereafter or not, non-resistance, patience, and forgiveness may still promise a better future for humanity than the self-perpetuating path of violence, anger and retaliation. A solid case for this would require further elaboration than allowed for in this paper; but the point here is that whether or not Tolstoy is faithful to Christianity, the argument he makes for non-resistance — and the consequences of it for the “war on terror” — can also be defended on the ostensibly more scientific basis of reason. Tolstoy's conflation of reason and religion may indeed be dubious, but the rationale for non-resistance to evil is both potentially justifiable on the grounds of reason on one hand, and undeniably written into the story of Christianity on the other.

Christian Anarchism

Nonetheless, the political ideal that Tolstoy subsequently found himself arguing for may appear to some as even more radical than his understanding of religion. That is, Tolstoy ultimately rejected the very institution of the state as unchristian and wrong (for introductions to Tolstoy's Christian anarchism, see Christoyannopoulos Reference Christoyannopoulos2008; Hopton Reference Hopton2000; Marshall Reference Marshall1993, 362–383; Woodcock Reference Woodcock1975, 207–219). His understanding of Jesus' commandments (including the one not to take oaths, here not critically discussed) led him to conclude that since the very existence of the state is based on the threat of violence, as embodied in the army, in prisons, in the police, and so on, the state is therefore transgressing the instruction not to resist evil, and is hence an unchristian institution. Moreover, the state's judicial system judges and punishes, again a contravention of Jesus' message. Also, a state actually defines itself against other states, thereby reinforcing distinctions between countrymen and foreigners, hence disobeying the commandment to treat all men as equals. Tolstoy's Christian anarchism is thus inseparable from his Christian pacifism, from his understanding of Christian non-violence and non-resistance (for an interesting discussion of the parallels between pacifism and anarchism, see Ostergaard Reference Ostergaard2007).

Furthermore, that the church has historically cuddled with the state does not in any way redeem the state — for Tolstoy, it only further condemns the church. Already guilty of (deliberately) misinterpreting Jesus' commandments, the church's association with the state simply provided further proof of its unfaithfulness to the essence of Christianity (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934a, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934b, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934f, Reference Tolstoy and Maude1934g, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c). In Tolstoy's judgment, both state and church were fundamentally unchristian, both had systematically manipulated the masses for their own advantages, and hence both would ultimately have to be done away with by humanity (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c). So Tolstoy extracted some clearly anarchist (but non-violent) implications from his understanding of Christianity; a more elaborate analysis or a critical assessment of these Christian anarchist ideals, however, extends beyond the scope of this paper.

Either way, Tolstoy disapproved of any imposition of any law, divine or manmade, by humans upon humans — what we today miscall “justice,” Tolstoy remarked, is merely brutal tit-for-tat revenge (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy1902, 99). For him, Jesus specifically commanded human beings never to resist evil or judge one another; and this could only imply that the political system that we are still based upon today would have to be replaced by some (perhaps perilous) anarchist ideal. And again, whether or not Tolstoy was correct in defending such utopia, it is difficult to deny its starting point — that Jesus did clearly say that we should never use violence against one another.

In any event, Tolstoy was not alone in his radical and utopian reading of the New Testament. But it was only after he reached his political conclusions largely on his own that he discovered that other individuals and sects had believed similar things before him. Thus in The Kingdom of God Is within You, he explains that it was only after he had written What I Believe that he was made aware of the similar political views of William Lloyd Garrison, Adin Ballou, Peter Chelčický, and the Quakers (Tolstoy Reference Tolstoy and Maude2001c, 3–33). And there are others that would also sympathize with Tolstoy up to a point: some early Christians such as Origen and Tertullian, and several late medieval sects such as the Hussites, the Anabaptists, and the Mennonites also read the Gospel as implying non-resistance to evil, and for some, as questioning the legitimacy of certainly church but sometimes also state authority (Brock Reference Brock1972, Reference Brock1981; Marshall Reference Marshall1993, 74–95). And indeed after Tolstoy, people like Jacques Ellul, Vernard Eller, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, and Michael Elliott have also interpreted Christianity as abolishing the need for a state as we know it (Day Reference Day1952; Eller Reference Eller1987; Elliott Reference Elliott1990; Ellul Reference Ellul and Bromiley1991; Missey and Thomas Reference Missey and Thomas1994).

So for all his apparently unique radicalism, Tolstoy's reading of Christianity has been at least partly shared by many Christians before as well as after him. Where Tolstoy is fairly unique, however, is in that he wrote the first systematic and extended explanation of how Christianity leads to non-resistance and, from there, to the redundancy of both church and state. In other words, of all these radical movements and thinkers, Tolstoy was probably the first one who most resembled a methodical Christian anarchist political theorist.